TIMMINS – An update to city council on the latest developments at the Hollinger open pit mining included the response to a fly rock the size of a “softball” coming over the berm and landing next to the water tower.

Don Burke, the new manager of the open pit, having recently moved to Timmins from Red Lake, explained the mine has taken measures in response to that incident.

He said they brought in a world-renowned blasting expert to offer additional direction and have introduced new protocols when blasting rock in “pioneering areas” of the mine.

Mayor Steve Black told Burke, “I am happy to see you have taken measures to prevent this from happening again but I don’t want to understate the seriousness and the concern that obviously us at city hall and residents did have in that regard. But I do applaud your efforts in being open and transparent and providing full disclosure with us in regards to what happened, and the followup measures and the follow up steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

Aside from that incident, Burke told council the “big news” is that Goldcorp has “now done all the work on outside of the berm” and are “increasing the depth inside the pit.”

Burke said the berm has berm has been brought up to its final elevation which means “we could go 24-hour operation which we did on the night shift of Oct. 14. Over the last three months, for the quarter, we placed 2 million tonnes … on the berm.

“To put that into perspective, the entire berm consists of approximately 6.7 million tonnes.” So in three months “we put … a little less than one-third of the tonnage. A lot of work was being done. A lot of machinery, a lot of equipment operating on top of that berm in the last three months.”